Revision as of 23:05, April 5, 2008

This page is an official policy on OrthodoxWiki. It has wide acceptance among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow. If you are part of the administration, please feel free to update this page as needed, but make sure that changes you make to this policy really do reflect OrthodoxWiki's perspective before you make them.

Localization and Inter-wiki relations (DRAFT IN PROGRESS)Comments are welcomed

Definitions

Localization refers to the process of porting the OrthodoxWiki project into languages other than English (its original tongue).

We recognize two separate arrangements. 1. Affiliates, and 2. Colleagues.

Affiliates

An "affiliate" relationship is appropriate when a canonically Orthodox group of persons sharing OrthodoxWiki's vision desires to expand OrthodoxWiki's project into other languages. We are very happy when to have other Orthodox-based wikis formally join OrthodoxWiki as full affiliates.

Administration

An affiliate relationship begins when one or more people volunteers to devote substantial efforts to creating and maintaining a localized OrthodoxWiki in a language that doesn't already have one. All contacts should go through Fr. John.

If approved, one or more people in the affiliate group will be given sysop status and added to the OrthodoxWiki sysop mailing list.

Affiliate Responsibilities

It is the responsibility of the affiliate(s) to actively maintain and manage the localized OrthodoxWiki in conformity with OrthodoxWiki's major guidelines, especially its copyright policy (for legal reasons) and OrthodoxWiki's principle of neutrality. They will also be responsible for translating core OrthodoxWiki texts from English into the other language.

Within these parameters, local operators are given a great deal of leeway regarding how their wiki is structured, setting priorities for what kind of material to import and export from the English language OrthodoxWiki, and so on.

If they fail to fulfill these responsibilities, affiliate status may be revoked, and their hosting and subdomain cancelled. This kind of measure will be only used sparingly in serious cases, however.

Logos and Identity

OrthodoxWiki affiliates are permitted and required to adopt the official OrthodoxWiki logo, although they may translate it into the other language if they like. Likewise, they should make use of the OrthodoxWiki favicon and search plugin icon, allow they may adapt these as they wish (for example, changing them to a different color to differentiate between language versions of OrthodoxWiki in the search box or for bookmarks).

Links to all the localized OrthodoxWikis should be prominently featured on the homepage of every discrete/localized OrthodoxWiki site.

Affialiates may use any of OrthodoxWiki's linkbuttons, translated or not, or may create their own.

Hosting and Domains

We will provide a localized subdomain (such as ru.orthodoxwiki.org, gr.orthodoxwiki.org, bu.orthodoxwiki.org, etc.). This can be pointed to another IP address to be hosted locally, or we may provide space on the server that hosts OrthodoxWiki (a server belonging to Orthodox Internet Services). In some cases, a domain name more appropriate to the language in question may also be parked upon the subdomain.

Hosting and technical management of the MediaWiki software can be provided free of charge by OrthodoxWiki, in association with Orthodox Internet Services. However, it is also possible to for affiliates to host and manage their own MediaWiki installation.

Copyright Issues

For practical reasons, it is important that localized OrthodoxWikis maintain the same copyright/licensing arrangement as the English-language OrthodoxWiki.

Since the localized wiki is part of the OrthodoxWiki project, we consider that all images and articles for which OrthodoxWiki has obtained special permission to use may also be used on localized OrthodoxWikis using the same domain name.

Colleagues

A "colleague" relationship is especially appropriate where the focus of another wiki (e.g. their interpretation of N.P.O.V. and "mainstream Chalcedonian Orthodox bias") differs from OrthodoxWiki's. We expect this would be the case, for example, if an Old Calendarist Greek group wanted to create their own wiki, or for Coptic/non-Chalcedonians or Roman (or other) Catholic wikis, or if another Eastern Orthodox group wanted to start a wiki with a substantially different focus or mission. In some cases, we may recognize other wikis as "colleagues" even if they do not call themselves Christian.

The word "colleague" assumes that we have a sense of common mission or complementarity, and are happy to work together and support each others work.

In this case, we would not share a common branding - domain names, logos, linkbuttons, etc. would all be distinct. Similarly, special image and article permissions would be handled separately.

Colleagues will get public recognition and prominent links on the wiki, as well as explicit permission to use any appropriate OrthodoxWiki material (as long as it fits their licensing scheme) and any other assistance or encouragement we can provide.

Colleague status may be revoked at any point, especially if the mission of the other wiki veers beyond a general "N.P.O.V." or "descriptive" stance and formally adopts strong polemics against another group in such a way that we are not comfortable having any formal association with them.

Appedix A: OrthodoxWiki Core Documents

This is a list of OrthodoxWiki core Documents which must be translated (in abbreviated form, if necessary) and maintained consistently across localizations. The English-language text will remain the "canonical" text.